Seems that in the end it was a combo fo my inexperience and error along with a BADLY written pattern! This does not bode well as this was my first piece of the nativity...I'm suddenly filled with dread at the prospect of knitting 3 kings, 3 shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, a manger, an angel, 2 sheep, one ox and one ***

Seems that in the end it was a combo fo my inexperience and error along with a BADLY written pattern! This does not bode well as this was my first piece of the nativity...I'm suddenly filled with dread at the prospect of knitting 3 kings, 3 shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, a manger, an angel, 2 sheep, one ox and one donkey

On the yrn/yfwd question, I consulted with my Yarn Jedi Kninja Master girlfriend last night and showed her the line in question and she offered this explanation for the use of two different instructions that mean essentially the same thing. The yrn would be a YO in the usual sense, but the yfwd would wrap in a counterclockwise direction rather than clockwise. Which... when I pictured how that would have to work, made some sense. Bringing the yarn forward between the needles would put it on the wrong side to do a knit, so you'd have to move it behind the needle again before knitting the next stitch. Presto, you have a counterclockwise turn. Now WHY you'd want to do this is anybody's guess, but this explains why there's two different instructions.

The lesson here I suppose (for me anyway) is that pattern instructions have to be considered in the larger context of what ELSE you're doing... because sometimes the same term means two different things depending on context. In a "normal" (whatever that is) context, I'd read yfwd as the transition to the front side and if your next stitch was a purl, that would make sense (though the instruction would be pretty extraneous unless this was a My First Rib pattern). In a perfect world (whatever THAT is) there's a section in the pattern that EXPLAINS what the yfwd means in the context of this pattern. But they may have assumed it wasn't necessary. (With me, this is NEVER a safe assumption... YMMV.)

But at the end of the day, you got it working and THAT is the only thing that really matters.

Bringing the yarn forward between the needles would put it on the wrong side to do a knit, so you'd have to move it behind the needle again before knitting the next stitch.

No, that's really not quite right. Bringing the yf does put it in front, because you bring it between the needles, but when you work the next stitch the yarn gets moved over the needle to the back, making the yarnover. The british terms tell you how to move the yarn, while US terms tell you what result you should have. The yarn would always be going in a counter clockwise direction around the needle, just the same as for a knit or purl stitch. A backwards/clockwise yo would be bringing the yarn up and over the top, not between and maybe that's what she was thinking of.

No, that's really not quite right. Bringing the yf does put it in front, because you bring it between the needles, but when you work the next stitch the yarn gets moved over the needle to the back, making the yarnover. The british terms tell you how to move the yarn, while US terms tell you what result you should have. The yarn would always be going in a counter clockwise direction around the needle, just the same as for a knit or purl stitch. A backwards/clockwise yo would be bringing the yarn up and over the top, not between and maybe that's what she was thinking of.

Actually we're saying the same thing, I just used the word "behind" in an ambiguous fashion. What I meant was the yarn would have to be on the back side of the work before you could do the next stitch. But in order for the operation to have any effect, you would have to go over the needle from the front -- counterclockwise (or anti clockwise if you wanna be British about it).

Which I suppose means that the "yrn" in these instructions means to go backward (clockwise) around the needle... otherwise, I can't see any point to using two different instructions. Normally the pattern would tell you what they meant somewhere, right? But maybe it's somewhere else in the book rather than in the pattern itself... anyway, sounds like it's sorted.

Seems that in the end it was a combo fo my inexperience and error along with a BADLY written pattern! This does not bode well as this was my first piece of the nativity...I'm suddenly filled with dread at the prospect of knitting 3 kings, 3 shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, a manger, an angel, 2 sheep, one ox and one donkey

No, yrn means 'yarn round needle' which indicates that you wrap it all the way around so you end up in front. None of the terms mean to wrap the yarn backwards, if a pattern has you do that they do call it 'yo backwards' or describe it as such.

As said before, British terms describe how you wrap the yarn between different stitches. The other one is yon - yarn over needle - and is when you go from a purl to a knit - you just loosely lay the yarn over the top of the needle to the back.